NUDITY RULES

OFFICIALS in India will punish the organisers of last week's Indian Fashion Week if they find out that two sensational "wardrobe malfunctions" were deliberate, publicity-seeking incidents. Model Carol Gracia put the photographers in a frenzy when her skimpy halter-neck top fell down to reveal her breasts, while former Miss India Gauhar Khan's skirt split so that she pulled a moony at the audience. "If we find that these acts were not accidental, then we will take action against the fashion show organisers," deputy chief minister of Maharashtra state, RR Patil, said yesterday. Mumbai's politicians have recently been working on a morality campaign which involved shutting down all the city's dance bars - and nudity on the catwalks of its burgeoning fashion events is therefore strongly disapproved of. But the designers say it is all a fuss over nothing. "We don't want everyone to be veiled," designer Narendra Kumar told The Indian Express. "We are lucky to live in a free country. [What happened to Gracias and Khan was] clearly a mistake." (April 4 2006, AM)Dolly Jones